Temporary heads of tax authorities: who needs them and why
Kyiv • UNN
Temporary heads of tax authorities: who needs them and why
The State Tax Service and most of its territorial divisions have been headed by acting heads for months. In fact, the entire tax authority's vertical is built on acting heads - starting with the head of the State Tax Service, Tetiana Kiriyenko, who was appointed acting head at the end of 2021. As the saying goes, there is nothing more permanent than temporary. However, according to some government officials and experts, this situation does not contribute to the effective work of the tax service and even gives rise to corruption, UNN writes.
"When everyone is fulfilling their duties, it creates an amorphous situation. And, in particular, in the regions, people feel that there is room for personal interest, not just state interest," said business ombudsman Roman Vashchuk in a commentary to UNN .
However, economic expert and analyst Pavlo Sebastianovych believesthat such a scheme of employment of tax officials has a specific goal - "all heads of tax and customs should be employed as acting heads, for the quick dismissal of those who disagree.
Experts have repeatedly voiced the opinion that interim managers are about keeping you on the hook. And interestingly, this opinion was indirectly confirmed by the head of the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada, MP Danylo Hetmantsev
"This is a principled position of the Cabinet of Ministers, with which I absolutely agree... when a person is able to do his or her job and demonstrates efficiency and results, he or she is appointed. If not, it is much easier to dismiss him in this status," Hetmantsev said in an interview.
But here a logical question arises: has the head of the tax office, who has been in the acting status since the end of the 21st century, not yet proved that she is capable of doing the job and has not demonstrated her effectiveness? If she has, why hasn't she become a full-fledged leader? And if, after more than two years in the status of acting head, her work still raises doubts, wouldn't it be better to dismiss such a specialist? And at the same time, allow the competent authorities to verify the results of such management.
But they are neither dismissed nor appointed, which means that someone needs to keep the tax authorities in limbo.
"(...) we see that no major meeting in the tax office takes place without the participation of Mr. Hetmantsev, which indicates that he manually controls all these processes.
Of course, it is legally difficult to prove that his signature is on any documents that determine the activities of a particular taxpayer, but we see that this man is informally and actually in charge," Dmytro Oleksiyenko, a member of the Taxpayers Association Board, said in a commentary to UNN, who, like many other experts and business representatives, is convinced that MP Hetmantsev is influencing the tax authorities.
Analysts note that such a situation - when the majority of managers are in the status of acting heads - provides opportunities for external influence on the body and creates conditions for the implementation of various illegal schemes, fraud and abuse.
And business is literally screaming about tax abuses: statistics from the Business Ombudsman Council alone show that the tax service is the leader among those whose actions entrepreneurs complain about. And it's not about the amount of taxes, but about their administration. According to statistics of the Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs, almost every second company in the country has suffered losses from the actions of the tax authorities.
Among the main problems faced by entrepreneurs are blocking of tax invoices, unreasonable classification of companies as risky, and confiscation of VAT. But that's not all, as economic expert and analyst Pavlo Sebastianovych noted in a commentary to UNN, the tax authorities are implementing a number of other schemes, such as registering fictitious VAT from fictitious companies; refunding VAT on fictitious exports; actually refunding VAT on fictitious documents; organizing schemes to remove companies from the "risky" status, and others.
"This is not a complete list of all Mr. Hetmantsev's schemes and innovations, and I think he has many more ideas on how to 'improve' the business climate in Ukraine," Sebastianovych said.
And now, another idea, which, according to experts, is also behind MP Hetmantsev, has begun to be implemented. We are talking about the National Revenue Strategy until 2030, which actually provides for the complete destruction of banking secrecy, which will allow the tax authorities not only to look into the pockets of every Ukrainian, but also to make a profit.
The business community still hopes that the resolution of problems in cooperation with the tax authorities will move forward and be systematic. However, this is unlikely to happen as long as most of the heads of tax authorities are in the status of temporary employees, which creates room for abuse and allows for external interference in their work.
"It is very important that these bodies do get heads and that business and business associations have the opportunity to communicate with these heads, among other things. Therefore, I think that the entire system of law enforcement agencies, the government, should appoint the appropriate heads," said Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin during a media interview, answering a question from a journalist of UNN about possible abuses in the tax service and the facts of manual control of the tax service by Hetmantsev, as voiced by the business. The Prosecutor General also added that the controlling authorities should build such relations with the business "so that there are no thoughts about who controls what".
